


The Rules are the First to Go

by adeepeningdig



Series: Little Animal Lives [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes's Trigger Words, Child Death, Dark, Death, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Mother Russia is bad, Stucky if you squint, The Gulag, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:48:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27709288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adeepeningdig/pseuds/adeepeningdig
Summary: “Kolyma.” He says it slow, as if tasting the word on his tongue. “Is that what it is called? They did not tell me that."
Series: Little Animal Lives [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1360450
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	The Rules are the First to Go

**Author's Note:**

> This is part III of the Little Animal Lives 'verse- a little prequel set during the years when Bucky was the Winter Soldier.  
> This is the darkest thing I have written- it involves the violent death of children (though the deaths are not "onscreen") and the violent death of adults, as well as simply violence and cruelty. Please heed the warnings and do not read if you feel that those things will distrub you. These are very difficult times. Take care of yourselves, friends.   
> Title is from Josh Ritter's most excellent song, "Girl in the War"

They find the Soldier in the orphanage, where he had been sent. The Sgt. had expected him to bolt, like a scared animal in an unfamiliar place, but instead he had hunkered down and stayed in place- a human tendency. This would haunt Fima, in the days to come, that his own first instinct was to think of the Soldier as human. 

Fima was new to the unit, transferred from Moscow and the Widows. He was new to the Sgt. and new to the Soldier. Indeed, he had never met the man, didn’t know he existed until the briefing a mere 24 hours ago. Now though, the Soldier was the only thing on his mind- finding him and getting back to base, where at least the wind didn’t feel like it was hollowing out his bones. 

What a place to live, this orphanage, out in the middle of the steppe, with no shelter to be seen. What a place to die, for Sendrovich, the orphanage master, at least, if the Soldier had done his job. 

But the Soldier had not been at the extraction point at the appointed time, nor had he radioed, or sent up flares, or communicated in any way, and this concerned the Sgt. who had turned white when they told him. We cannot lose the Soldier, he said, and Fima could see the sweat forming at his hairline.

They had spent the night searching the endless fields, the dogs baying as they ran through the stalks of wheat, despite the constant reminders to be on guard- the Soldier was more dangerous than he looked. They did not find him on the steppe, or on the road, or in the ghost-town of the village four miles north. There weren’t very many places to hide, around here. 

Now it was a grey, wet dawn, and they have finally come back to the place where the Soldier had been left a day before for what should have been a smooth, quick operation. 

Fima follows Yasha step, by careful step up through the halls of the orphanage, classroom doors all askew, papers blown all over the place by the summer squall coming in the open windows. It comes through the windows and the cracks sounding like a keening at a child’s funeral. They approach the stairs- 8 soldiers all in a row, light on their feet as they climb; just the noise of their boots on the wooden slats, and a wailing. 

Senderovich is in the office, shot straight through the heart, his substantial body slumped over the desk, blood pooling beneath his chest, staining his greying beard. It is very neatly done.He would have died instantly. Fima himself could not have done any better. The Sgt. glances around the room, nodding. This was, apparently, what he had been expecting. Fima did not know what the orphan master’s crime was, but apparently, he was meant to be a warning. They left his body where it was to be found later by the early morning staff, or the students, or whoever it was who would come looking.

Underneath all the sound sweeping through the building, there is silence, and now that they have found Senderovich, it is strange. It is an hour after dawn, the kitchen, at least, should be awake. Where are the pipes, groaning into life? Where are the early risers, floorboards creaking as they turned in their beds? Fima signals to Yasha, pulling at his ear. Yasha looks up and shakes his head- he’s noticed it as well. Who cares, he mouths, shrugging, let’s just find him and get out of here. It’s creepy as fuck. 

So they ascend the stairs, up to the living quarters, if there are any living that remain, and that is where they find the Soldier.

It is Gregory, first, who loses the contents of his stomach, and it probably saves his life. He was meant to be the first through the door of the dormitory, but he sways to the side, retching and then vomiting before the door can swing open under his touch.

The stench hits Fima, five men back, a millisecond later. Fima knows death. He knows the pigs in the abattoir, the smell of shit when men die frightened, but never has he smelled anything like this. His stomach clenches and roiles, but he does not vomit. 

Then Yasha is dead. 

“Down!

They drop, seven soldiers and a Sgt., all in a row

“Holy shit,” Ivan whispers, “did he do that?” For a moment Fima thinks he means Yasha, but then he sees Ivan’s gaze, peering just over the edge of the window into the dormitory where the shot had come from. 

Fima looks. 

They are strewn everywhere, the children. Some on beds, on the floor, one still half upright- corpse supported by the basin he had been leaning on. These deaths were messy- blood and viscera everywhere. In the middle of it all, is the Soldier, sitting on one of the little cots all lined up in a row. The body of a child is cradled in his arms- one of flesh, one of metal - as he keens. 

The Soldier is smaller and bigger than Fima had been expecting, for all that he was spoken of in hushed reverence and fear by his fellow soldiers. His greasy long hair falls over his face as hunches over the dead child, rocking him gently, but it is his arm- silver and sleek and all together inhuman that holds Fima’s attention. What is it? Is it a weapon itself? 

“No,” the Sgt says, answering Ivan, “he doesn’t kill like that.”

Gregory raises his head to get a better look. “How does he-”

Glass shatters and Gregory is dead, shot straight through the head. 

“Like that,” the Sgt. says. “He kills like that.”

They settle in and wait for Lukin. 

Every once in a while, Fima glances up from where he is crouched to see what the soldier is doing. Now he is putting the children to bed. One by one, he lifts them up and lays them on their cots, humming as he does so. He closes their eyes and covers them in their thin blankets - not like shrouds- but as if they were going to bed for the night, tucked up to their chins.

Now, he has the body of a little girl in his arms. She has been split up the middle. A cruel way to die. The Soldier is pushing her guts back into her body and sewing her up, as if she were a rag doll. He is up to his elbows in blood and grime. 

It is an interminable wait. They are like prey animals in a pen, herded into a corner by the dogs. No one dares to move, even as the heat becomes terrible. Fima is sweating through his socks. He wipes his hands on his dirty pants in an attempt to keep them dry. They could take the Soldier, probably. There are 6 of them, and one of him, no matter how quick and deadly he may be. But the orders are to wait for Lukin. And so they wait. 

Finally, Lukin comes striding in, his long coat open and sweeping behind him.

“Is Senderovich dead?”

“Yes, sir.” the Sgt. says. 

“Good.” Lukin doesn’t pause. He marches straight to the dormitory door and throws it open. 

Five soldiers and a Sgt. jump to their feet. “Sir-” Fima cannot help his strangled cry. 

They push against each other into the room behind him, cursing his idiocy, and arrogance

“Longing!” Lukin’s voice is like a bullet, and the Soldier yells, teeth bared, and covers his ears. It is a string of nothing but nonsense words- freight trains, and numbers, but whatever Lukin is saying is too strong for the Soldier. His hands go limp, and the girl’s corpse slides off his lap, falling to the ground with an awful thud as he stands. His eyes focus nowhere and then on Lukin.

“Ready to comply,” the Soldier says.

They burn down the orphanage. Ah well, the townspeople will think, how tragic, all those children dying in a fire. These things happen out here on the steppe. Fima turns his back on the catching flames. All missions go sideways at some point, but this one has left him exhausted and irritable. Losing soldiers is always bad. Losing civilians is worse. He wants to get back to base and sleep. He wants to wash the blood out of his boots and his pants. He wants never to see the Soldier again. 

Still, even as he goes to sleep, he cannot keep the Soldier out of his thoughts. What would cause a man to do this to himself- to allow themselves to be so completely emptied that they are no longer a person? Maybe he is absolving himself of some great crime. If Fima were the type of man who could slaughter a room full of children, maybe he too, would choose to be emptied.

“He doesn’t kill like that,” the Sgt. had said. But then who did the killing?

The next morning they put the Soldier in a chair and electrocute his brain into nothing. Now, he is nothing but a body, his screams echoing off the concrete. His whole body twitches and trembles as they pull him off the chair. Fima catches the Soldier under his flesh elbow just as he is about to pitch over. 

“Easy,” he says, putting aside the urge to tell him to wipe the tears and spittle off his face. 

The Soldier doesn’t reply- his breath comes in huffs and snorts like a horse driven too hard - but his fists squeeze closed as he glances at Fima out of the corner of one bloodshot, pale eye. 

When he is steadier, and clothed again, the Soldier is brought into the courtyard where Lukin runs him through a series of ridiculous exercises- stand this way, now that, shoot this, shoot that. Ivan, standing next to Fima in the shelter of the courtyard wall, snickers. “What’s he going to ask him to do next- suck his cock? He probably would. He’s like a dog, he just does as he’s told. He’s got no shame.” 

Fima doesn’t reply. There is a puppy chained to the fence at the other end of the courtyard. It is a bright thing- whimpering in confusion - but still tracking the men with his eyes, tail wagging as they approach. 

Lukin says, “The dog. Gut first, and then head.”

The Soldier, facing away from the puppy, raises his arm.

There had been dogs in Atka. Most of the year they lived outside, guarding the mines and the animals, but in the depths of winter they would come into the house, and Fima would let the into his bed where they pushed their warm bodies into the curve of his own, and so he, and they, survived the bitterest of long nights. 

Fima pushes himself off the wall and says, “Sir, isn’t that a waste of firepower? And a waste of a perfectly good guard dog?” For indeed, it would grow big and strong and was bred to protect. 

Lukin looks at Fima. 

Fima thinks. This is no place for mercy. 

“Yes, Comrade,” Lukin says, “it would be a waste.” He turns to the Soldier. “Break him,” he says. 

And the Soldier does.

What he sees when he comes to, is the same thing that he saw when he went under- the Soldier looking down at him, brows drawn over his grey eyes. 

He had been brutal in his efficiency. First he went for Fima’s arms, then his legs, and then simply placed his metal hand around Fima’s throat until he had blacked out. Distantly, Fima thinks he should be grateful for this. It could have been worse. But the pain is so great, he wants to writhe with it. He cannot even turn his head to see where he is. 

“You are malfunctioning,” the Soldier tells Fima.

“Did you do it? Did you kill those children?” Fima grits out. He does not know why it is important, so important that he must ask this instead of simply screaming or whimpering, or just slipping silently into the dark. 

His Soldier doesn’t answer. His eyes slide away from Fima’s face, and he has begun to softly keen again. It grates on Fima’s nerves, how it echoes the sounds pulsing through his own brain, a constant siren of pain. 

“Shut up,” he tells the Soldier. “Could you just shut up?” 

The Soldier does not shut up, and Fima falls back away into blessed unconsciousness.

“You are malfunctioning, comrade,” the Soldier says again, when Fima wakes for the second time. “They will put you away in the cold soon.” 

The way he says it sounds like a gift, something to be impatiently awaited for, not Atka; not the trucks coming off the highway to refuel on their way to Kolyma, prisoners standing pressed against each other in the open bed, their faces frozen into blankness. Once, Fima saw a man jump from one of the trucks in desperation, only to be shot before he reached the ground. He had died slowly, groaning until he was silent, his bare feet turning black against the snow. No one in Atka dared stop to help him. There were eyes everywhere, and if you weren’t careful, you too, could find yourself on one of those trucks on the way to a place where dying quickly of a gunshot was better than living. 

The Soldier’s eyes flutter shut when he says it though, a hint of longing in an impassive face. 

“Kolyma?” Fima asks. Surely he is thinking of something else entirely.

“Kolyma.” He says it slow, as if tasting the word on his tongue. “Is that what it is called? They did not tell me that. Yes,” he tells Fima. “Sometimes I am there for a long time, and when I come back everything is different. Everyone is dead.”

“Oh. What is it like?” Maybe the stories are wrong. Maybe the men on the trucks did not die starving and beaten. Maybe there is a refuge from the ice somewhere out there in Kolyma- a well, lit house, warm and cheery. 

“The cold-- it does not hurt. It is quiet. You can -” the Soldier clamps his lips shut. Finally, he says, “I go there when I malfunction, but I never die.”

Fima has survived a lot in his life. If he can survive this cell, broken and alone with this man who is a weapon, who seems to have no wits other than to kill, perhaps he will live to see Kolyma. He was raised in the stinging ice, in the dark of the mines. He will survive the gulag too. 

“I didn’t do it for you,” he tells the Soldier the next time he wakes. The Soldier is sitting cross legged, back leaning against the cell door, a mimicry of relaxation, but his eyes don’t leave Fima’s face. “We had dogs in Atka. They kept me warm. I did not do it for you.”

The Soldier considers this for a moment. “We didn’t have dogs. There was-” he pauses, “a cat. Yes, a cat. Steve would feed it, and it made me angry. We didn’t have enough food. But Steve liked it. He liked the cat.”

“Would you kill a cat?” Fima asks.

“Mission parameters unclear,” the Soldier replies.

“If they told you to kill a cat, would you do it?”

“Mission parameters unclear. There is no cat.”

Fima sighs. “I don’t understand you,” he mutters, but tries again. “Theoretically, if there were a cat, and if they ordered you to kill it, would you?”

The Soldier shifts. “What is theoretically?” he asks. “I do not understand the orders. Please, what are my orders?”

It is not pity that Fima feels, but something akin to it, a resolute sense that something very bad has happened, and there is nothing to be done about it. “Nothing,” he tells the Soldier. “You have no orders. You should sleep.” 

He, himself, is exhausted, nauseous and in pain. The adrenalin that had been keeping him alert has washed away, and the agony does not become any better over time, and truly he does not know how long he has been here in this cell. But the hard concrete floor under his has started to feel like spikes boring his way into his shattered joints, each jostling movement like another gunshot. 

He does not sleep; he cannot sleep. Still, he closes his eyes against the ever-present electric light, and fades away. 

Coming in and out of consciousness begins with hurt all over, and then with a roiling in his stomach. He opens his eyes and the pain is more distinct - it is in his knees, sharp as a knife. It is in his head, behind his eyebrows, thudding. It radiates down his shoulders into his arms, hot like lava. 

“Please,” he begs. “Please, could I have some water?” 

The Soldier moves out of his sightline, and how strange that is, to see the concrete wall, instead of the Soldier’s dusty boots. He is gone for long seconds, and when he returns he kneels down next to Fima, hands cupped at his mouth. Fima laps at the water like a cat. The Soldier gently helps him lay his head back down when he is done drinking and then disappears again, only to return with more water. He washes Fima’s face with it, hushing. His metal hand is soothingly cool on Fima’s cheeks. 

“You’re good at this. Do you do this for him too, your brother Steve?”

The Soldier’s hands slam down on Fima’s shoulders and Fima screams.

“Shut up. Shut up,” the Soldier says, scrambling to his feet, eyes darting to and fro ceaselessly. “You mustn’t say that. You musn’t - shhh. Shhhh.” With his finger at his lips he looks like a parody of a parent hushing a noisome child. “That is not for here, comrade. Not here. You must keep it close, here” he taps his chest, “right here you keep it. Then you can have it in the cold. In Kolyma. Only there.” 

Fima gapes.

It is clear that the Soldier is insane. What else could this be but insanity?

Then he says, “Brother. Is that what he is? They didn’t tell me that.”

The Soldier falls silent. He will not respond to any of Fima’s questions. He does not move, not even when Fima pleads for water; even when he begs. Please do not leave me lying here. Please help me to sit up, at least. Do not leave me here on the ground, undefended, when they come for me. Please, he begs, aloud or in his head, he does not know. Reality is slippery. Eyes closed or opened, all he sees are the Soldier’s unmoving dusty boots. All he can hear are the Soldier’s even breaths and somewhere, just out of sight, a dripping water pipe. 

The door slides open. 

It is Lukin, the Sgt. following on his heels. 

“Huh,” the Sgt. says, and brings his boot down on Fima’s ribs. ‘I thought you would be dead. Why haven’t you killed him, Soldier?”

“Not within mission parameters, sir.”

Lukin smirks, “I told you. He is extremely literal. He will do exactly what you tell him- no more, no less.”

“Oh, is that what he did at the orphanage?”

“You and I both know that was an anomaly. You see he can be trusted.”

Now they are leaving the cell, taking the Soldier with them. “He’s erratic, we should think about decommissioning him” the Sgt. is saying, voice fading down the hall. 

Now, there is nothing. No Soldier. No noise. Just his own body and his own pain. 

Fima closes his eyes, and drifts. Soon the pain will end. Soon, there will be nothing but the slow creep of the ice. There are eyes everywhere. There are ears everywhere. No one will stop to help him, he knows, not here in Atka. A truck engine sputters to life. The snow is smooth and cold against his cheek, almost like a floor below him, and the wind doesn’t blow. It is better to die here, in Atka, home. Someone will take his body eventually, he won’t be left to be eaten by the wild dogs and the wolves. After all, it is almost spring. He can hear the steady dripping of melting just beyond his sightline. Soon, he tells himself, soon there will be nothing but the dark and the silence, where all secrets reside.


End file.
